The Railways Minister D. V. Sadananda Gowda said that Rail Reservation System will be revamped into next generation e-ticketing system with ticket booking through mobile phones and through Post Offices to be popularised. (Rail Budget: Full coverage)

Presenting the Railway Budget 2014-15 in Parliament today Gowda said, the Indian Railways is expanding the scope of online booking for people to book a train, book a coach, book a berth and book a seat in chair car. Here are the highlights:

1. A major revamp of the passenger reservation facility by transforming it into a next generation e-ticketing system, supporting 7,200 tickets per minute and allowing 1.20 lakh users simultaneously.

2. Ticket booking through mobile phones and post offices to be popularised.

3. To provide facility of buying platform tickets and unreserved tickets over the Internet

4. Parking-cum-platform combo tickets will also be launched to facilitate the passengers and to save their time while coin operated vending machine will also be experimented.

5. Initiatives such as digital reservation charts at stations and extension of dual display fare repeaters at all the ticket counters through PPP mode proposed.

6. Online booking facility of Railway Retiring Room will be extended to all the stations during the year